1. Field of Invention
The currently claimed embodiments of this invention relate to analyzing cells.
2. Discussion of Related Art
The contents of all references, including articles, published patent applications and patents referred to anywhere in this specification are hereby incorporated by reference.
Ninety percent of cancer-related deaths are caused by metastatic disease, i.e. the spreading of a subset of cells from a primary tumor in an organ to distal sites in other organs. However, despite research efforts, no reliable genetic, epigenetic, or proteomic signature of cancer metastasis has been identified so far. In particular, a recent systematic genetic analysis of cells from primary pancreatic tumors of early-stage patients and liver metastatic sites of late-stage patients, while displaying shared signaling pathways, revealed highly heterogeneous genetic mutational sets, potentially limiting the ability of genetic profiling to stage tumors and predict clinical outcomes. Traditional efforts in cancer diagnostics and prognosis have focused on identifying molecular signatures of metastatic disease (e.g. over-expression of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in prostate cancer, expression of cell receptor HER2 in breast cancer, degree of DNA methylation in ovarian cancer, mutation in KRAS in colorectal cancer, etc.), which too often fail to usefully or reliably recommend courses of therapy and/or predict clinical outcomes.
There is thus a need for improved analyzing of cells.